[batushka3]

> Most of the plastic that enters the oceans from land comes from rivers in Asia. More than 80% of it.

This is THE PROBLEM. It is mesmerizing how article shifts blame to those terrible "rich countries". Me in that rich country collect every bit of plastic to trashbin, sort it out just to read than my asian friends dumped it to river zero F's given. And it's my fault!

[usrusr]

Do you read the article as shifting blame to richer countries? I read it the exact opposite way: most of the article is all about debunking the popular meme that most of poor countries' badly managed waste is actually out-of-sight-ed rich countries' waste, but it tries hard to do so in a polite way.

[snarf21]

We also need to remember that 75%+ of the plastic in the great big garbage patch in the pacific is from fishing.

But we also need to be clear that this is ALL our faults. We may say we dutifully collect our plastic bottles and separate them but do no further research to learn that most of it goes right to a landfill. We don't demand product packaging that is known to be easily recyclable, we want cheap and convenient. We don't demand clean water for other countries around the world anymore than we demand clean working conditions and humane treatment. Everything is out of sight, out of mind. We are so privileged that we forget ourselves.

Humans are a very selfish species and we keep losing sight of the fact that this planet can't support this many selfish humans. The planet is just now starting to fight back. We have been f'ing around and are now starting to find out and it won't be pretty. Until we get serious about sustainability writ large, we will continue to receive our comeuppance.

[a1445c8b]

> Me in that rich country collect every bit of plastic to trashbin, sort it out just to read than my asian friends dumped it to river zero F's given. And it's my fault!

Woah right there! Hang on. No need to get personal.

While I commend you for doing your job with recycling, it takes a government and its recycling policies and programs to make any meaningful difference. Conversely, it takes poor government policies to produce poor regional handling of plastics.

Let’s keep it at that level and not include ethnicity into the picture.

[RobotToaster]

Blaming entire countries is generally done to shift the blame from a small number of billionaire CEOs and corrupt politicians, to the working class of that country.

[bennysonething]

What evidence do you have for this?

[yrgulation]

Last time i raised the same concern i was accused of 1) colonialism 2) supremacism 3) racism.

I suppose “poor” countries get a free pass because corrupt politicians accept to turn those countries into dumping grounds and we have no right to raise that issue. Even the suggestion that everyone should do their part is censored here on HN. Not by HN but by extremist nationalists from the region.

[zakki]

I think the problem is people from rich country blame the people from poorer country because they let the corrupt politicians turn their country to dumping grounds. But people from rich country doesn’t care that their politicians let their country exporting waste to poorer country.

[martin_a]

> But people from rich country doesn’t care that their politicians let their country exporting waste to poorer country.

I would even be fine with that, if there was some highly specialized recycling facility in one of those poorer countries.

Seems like they are just building landfills with all of that, or just dump it somewhere, though.

[yrgulation]

I am quite sure there is a lot of pressure on politicians to not let their countries export trash in rich countries and zero in poor countries. There are even laws in that regard [1]. I am in awe by the amount of hate the west gets.

[1] https://www.gov.uk/guidance/importing-and-exporting-waste

[nashashmi]

be careful in how you address the problem if you keep blaming others. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bho6xY-jSuE

[orwin]

Did we read the same article? From what i've read, the west contribute to at most 5% of that (i used to believe it was much more, something like 20%, aka around the same per capita).

I don't think the article blame the west at all, the opposite rather. It also says that the 5% figure is probably inflated, because traded plastics are likely to have more oversight and less likely to end in rivers. I think this article is perfectly balanced.

Also:

> Me in that rich country collect every bit of plastic to trashbin, sort it out just to read than my asian friends dumped it to river zero F's given. And it's my fault!

It's your government that permit companies who exploit local populations with little to no oversight (regulations are bad, oversight is bad). That's basically what "neocolonialism" is. I dislike the word and i think this is more related to capitalism than colonialism anyway, but that's the accepted definition.

[badpun]

It's western governments fault that they allow exporting trash to foreign countries to be "processed" by companies which are more than likely to just dump eveything into ground or a river. And it is much worse with toxic industrial waste, where it's not just discarded plastic forks and stuff, but actual million of gallons of chemicals that can poison entire water basins.

If recycling or protection of environment in general was the actual goal, we'd never do it. But, in reality, it is mostly just greenwashing and/or protecting just the local environment (who cares if rivers in Poland or China will become toxic, as long as US or Germany or Italy are clean), so "out of sight, out of mind" policy works well.

[mpweiher]

Huh?

"Most of the world’s waste is handled domestically and most of the waste that enters the oceans stems from these countries."

"... around 2% of waste is traded."

[badpun]

It would be great if it was weighted by toxicity though. Regular municipal waste is nowhere as dangerous or expensive to dispose of. Meanwhile in Eastern Europe, there are hundreds of sites discovered by authorities, where extremely toxic industrial waste from Western Europe plants is abandoned by various sham companies. Safely cleaning up each of those sites can cost dozens of millions of dollars (per site) and that's assuming the containers didn't break and the poison didn't leak into ground already.

[mpweiher]

The article and all the figures are about plastic, not toxic industrial waste.

[hactually]

Currently in Bali and there's a lot of plastic waste. And that's the only waste you see.

There are efforts to return to the old pre-plastic days as it's a relatively new invention and the Balinese aren't used to having to use bins and shipping plastic off to far away lands.

They expect it to all degrade back into the ground, perhaps rightly so.

Changing that entire culture for the worst because we introduced plastic to the world seems incredibly ignorant.

[thisiscorrect]

I've never heard anyone from the US or Europe claim that plastic will degrade back into the ground. Somehow they changed their "entire culture" to put trash in cans.